Problem creating bootable restore USB drive

jdinia,

Click the link below for information and how to articles reinstalling Windows.

Factory reset, restore, or reinstall Microsoft Windows on a Dell computer

Jesse L,

Thanks for the suggestion.  All of those methods have been tried.  I have tried to make the restore USB drive on 2 different systems now with the same results. I believe it may be possible that the downloadable image is corrupt.  I did download it on the 2 machines, not copy it from one to the other.

The fact you state you formatted the windows partition, makes me wonder what you are using to download and create the Recovery drive.  If you drive is showing the message you indicate, it is like an .iso file us being copied over instead of creating the file structure.  I have attached a picture of folder structure on a Dell Recovery Drive for my system, which came originally with Windows 10.

When you say you want to recovery to factory, are you wanting the OEM utilities which came with the system?  If not, you can use the media creation tool from Microsoft to create a bootable install media with which you can reinstall Windows 10 as a Clean install.

If you had created the windows 10 recovery drive, it might have been able to reset to a factory condition, depending on how your system was originally configured.

Saltgrass,

I have another laptop and a desktop I am using to download the image from Dell, then running the Dell OS Recovery tool, which I also downloaded from Dell, to make the USB restore drive.  When I open the downloaded image all of the files and the folder structure appear to be intact, identical to your structure.  When I use the Recovery tool it creates the 1 file and 1 folder with 2 files as noted in my first post.  The ISO file is not present on the drive, not even with an H attribute.  I tried using Rufus to create the drive, Rufus says an unknown compression method is used and it cannot create the drive.  This system was sold to a customer by Dell.  She soon discovered her error when she could not get Windows updates due to lack of drive space.  The wants us to restore it to factory default so she can resell it now that she has purchased a new Dell from us (with much more memory and storage).

When I use the Recovery tool it creates the 1 file and 1 folder with 2 files as noted in my first post.

The boot folder on my recovery drive has 3 folders and 6 files.  If I remember correctly, I did as you seemed to have done, using the system the recovery drive would be used with.

I also downloaded and installed the Recovery tool and then downloaded the image which may be around 6 GBs.  I used an 8 GB USB drive but a 16 GB may be better.  It took around 30 minutes for the recovery drive to be created.  I used a new drive so the Recovery tool did the formatting .

You cannot just copy over the contents of the image since the Recovery tool breaks out some folders which are not there if just copied.

Your system did come originally come with Windows 10?  If you ever get it created correctly, it will boot into a recovery scenario where you have to choose an Image recovery, if I am remembering correctly.  And again, the recovery I completed did not have the OEM utilities were not included.  So a clean Win 10 install may be your best bet.

I had Dell support take control of my desktop and attempt to make the recovery USB drive.  They could not do so even after re-downloading the files and reinstalling the tool.  They could not figure out why it would not work so escalated the problem to the next level.  In the mean time I have simply installed Windows 10 Home x64, updated drivers, installed all downloadable software (from Dell), installed all updates from Microsoft, and sent the system home with the owner.  She was very understanding, luckily.

It is hard to know why something won't create a recovery drive.  I found the XPS 2720 I have made recovery drives fine until I changed the OEM partition configuration by shrinking C and creating a new partition.  I could no longer make a recovery drive until I re-established the original drive configuration.

I made an install USB drive for an Inspiron 3542 today using the same install of the Recovery tool and a downloaded iso, it worked fine.  This leads me to believe that the iso available for download for the Inspiron 3452 is bad.  The 3542 has a full blown OS and a large hard drive. The 3452 has a small SSD and a pared down OS.

I had a similar issue trying to make a bootable USB from the ISO file provided by Dell to install Windows 7.

I followed the Dell instructions and nothing worked. Then I found https://superuser.com/questions/1063220/windows-10-iso-on-usb-refuses-to-boot

I recreated the USB drive using Rufus, and that let me boot the USB install media.

I have a similar problem.  I'm trying to make a USB recovery drive.  I go through the download and install part of it, but then it wants to format my 64 gb USB, and when it does, it formats it as a 2 gb drive, then gives me an error saying the USB doesn't have enough room.

I have tried this on 3 computers with the same result. I've called support, and they are utterly useless!